KNI Newsletter

2011 Memories of this summer

Late summer greetingsHow are you all doing?
We had an unusually pleasant summer with cool mornings and evenings.
We hope all our KNI families had a fun summer.
We had our summer school and had a summer filled with water play and children’s laughter.
Now that September is almost here, we are looking forward to seeing how much your children have grown over the summer.

Tanabata event was held at the Huntington Library on July 3rd.
Children in yukata (summer kimono) had fun making various kinds of decorations with Origami. The decorations were hung on long bamboo branches with little strips of paper with wishes written on them.
The children received warm applause as they sang songs loud
and clear in front of the colorful bamboo branches.
The children got to take parts of the branches home.
Thank you to everyone who came to the event! (by Ms. Yamashita)

The popular shopping day event took place on August 4th and 5th.
In the past, we have always used fake money for selling and
buying the merchandise.
However this year, we have changed the theme of this event to a fundraising for the Japanese disaster victims and sold the merchandise
for 25 cents each.
The children enjoyed pretending to be a customer or store
clerk for two days.
Some children were so enthusiastic that they really tried hard to sell their product. All the transactions went smoothly thanks to the parents who helped during the events with smiles on their faces. We raised a total of $ 570 during this event. Thank you!! (by Ms. Kawabe)

Cucumbers, tomatoes, corn, sweet pepper, green pepper, egg plant,
Kabocha squash… We had another great harvest this year.
Many parents have asked us how we grow our vegetables,
wondering what our secrets might be. There is no secret.
All we use on our garden are composted waste from you, the “grow big” daily cheer from the children, the sun, and water,
nothing else. Thank you, God. Thanks for your hard work, Garden.

We held our annual “sleep-over” event on August 12 & 13.
Fifty one students showed up with their big overnight bags
in the evening of the 12th.
This year, we had whopping 19 alumni volunteers!
They all eased the nerves of the anxious children by welcoming them
when they arrived at the school, helping them with their name tags,
picking vegetables from the garden, washing rice etc.
By the end of all this, the children all had smiles on their faces.
The first task was making supper of curry & rice and watermelon-boat.
“My eyes hurt!” was a common comment from children cutting onions.
But the curry, full of the onion and eggplants from the garden, was scrumptious! Many children went back for the seconds.
Once the sun went down, it was time for haunted house.
The children were broken up into six groups to walk through
the haunted house. Some groups had trouble entering the house initially but the group leaders, who have been through it a number of times,
said “Let’s go together” and eventually convinced everyone to go in! Yay! Before going to sleep, we all hummed
“Kyo no hi ha sayonara (good bye to today)” and spent a unifying and relaxing time together.
The faces of the children in the morning were filled with confidence and looked more grown up than the previous evening.
Thanks everyone for all your help! (by Miss Kanno)

We had our annual KNI Big Maze on Aug.25 & 26.
The children all looked very excited as they stood at the entrance
of the maze made with newspaper.
As they entered, we heard the children’s joyous but sometimes puzzled voices like “Oh, no! It’s a dead-end here!”, “It’s got to be this way!”, “Yay! I made it!”. On Friday’s Cooking Class day, older children paired up with the younger ones and challenged the maze.
There were memos as they went where they had to figure out
the secret code by finding hidden letters and decoding them.
Though the children at first complained it was too hard,
teamwork was the key and everyone was able to reach the goal!
Above everything , the smiles on everyone when they got to enjoy
the banana ice-cream and juice treat was the best ever!
(by Ms. Hachiga)